A Connecticut-based school bus company awarded an expanded contract to provide transportation for Rhode Island students is apologizing for service disruptions that left families scrambling to get their children to and from school in the first couple weeks of school.

Service disruptions attributed to a shortage of drivers led the Rhode Island Department of Education (RIDE) to issue a corrective action plan last Friday to DATTCO Motorcoach, the company awarded a three-year, $20 million statewide bus contract in May. The contract expanded DATTCO’s existing service area to span most of the state, from Westerly to Woonsocket, and the majority of the state’s urban core.

It was unclear how many children were stranded without bus service, but they included children with disabilities who were not picked up for school or whose families were called to come get them in the afternoon because bus service became unavailable. The problems drew fierce condemnation on Monday from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Rhode Island and Rhode Island Center for Justice. The advocacy organizations demanded in a that RIDE correct the issues by Tuesday, sooner than the deadline of 10 days RIDE set in its to DATTCO on Sept. 6.

“DATTCO has left multiple students in wheelchairs for hours at their schools,” Lisa Odom-Villella, deputy commissioner for instructional programs at RIDE, wrote in the Sept. 6 letter outlining a corrective action plan.

Families of kids who were left without school bus transportation may seek compensation for any resulting travel costs, according to state education officials. Parents of affected children have been contacted about the reimbursement process.

“We are deeply sorry to any students or families who were or continue to be affected by the challenges that we faced last week as the school year began,” Paul Mayer, a spokesperson for DATTCO, wrote in an email Wednesday to Rhode Island Current.

Mayer said the vast majority of routes DATTCO services in Rhode Island are running as scheduled, and noted the company’s otherwise successful track record in recent years. 

“We know that it is not acceptable and that our apology must be followed up by action, and to that end we have already made significant progress with each passing day as routes become staffed with permanent drivers and aides.

“Though many of the immediate concerns raised have already been rectified or are in the process of being corrected, we know that our work is not done.”

Morente said two routes would be affected on Thursday afternoon and that parents had already been contacted.

“DATTCO has reported that all morning routes now have drivers, but one route did not run because a driver was out sick,” Morente wrote in an email Monday. “The vast majority of students have not been impacted and DATTCO has sought ways to increase coverage.”

After state officials first became aware of service problems on Aug. 29, they reassigned 26 of approximately 300 bus routes to First Student, which already services parts of Providence and Bristol counties for RIDE’s statewide bussing system. DATTCO admitted they had no way of fully staffing the routes.

“RIDE was under the impression that all the remaining Dattco routes would be covered the week of September 3,” Morente said. But it was clear that was untrue on the first day of school in Providence (school districts start at different times). RIDE became aware DATTCO was having individual drivers do multiple runs, which can slow and complicate service. RIDE took five more routes and awarded them to First Student, who had enough properly licensed drivers.

First Student, a national bussing company based in Cincinnati, will keep the 31 routes for the remainder of the three-year contract, Morente said. The routes run from the East Bay up to Woonsocket.

First Student did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.

In May, state officials awarded most of their rezoned transportation districts to DATTCO after a competitive bid process — a move which drew union anger, , as Dattco is mostly non-union compared to First Student.

The ACLU and Rhode Island Center for Justice called on RIDE to immediately fix the problem and develop an alternative plan as a backup should DATTCO fail to provide necessary services again.

“RIDE maintains responsibility for ensuring that students get the transportation required by their IEPs [individualized education programs, which are for students who receive special education] as of Sept. 3, 2024,” the letter stated.

Looking for drivers

Anthony F. Cottone, RIDE’s chief legal counsel, responded to the ACLU letter Tuesday, saying there was “no reason to believe that DATTCO was not capable of performing its contract … at the outset of the 2024-2025 school year,” given that the company had already been providing bus services in parts of Rhode Island since 2020.

DATTCO that there was a licensing issue with its drivers, many of whom are based in Connecticut and lack the proper credentials to drive a school bus in Rhode Island. After news of the bus route issues broke, DATTCO posted to its Facebook page on that it was looking for Rhode Island drivers. A similar notice has been posted on its webpage since at least late August.

“RIDE reached out to other vendors to cover additional routes but there were no more available CDL drivers,” Morente said Tuesday.

Cottone’s letter pointed out that DATTCO’s logistical errors were due in part to sloppy planning: On Sept. 3, the agency received a “transportation plan” from DATTCO which showed over 30 routes would have “double runs,” or one driver serving two routes.

“That would result in children on such routes getting to school an average of 1 hour and 41 minutes late,” Cottone wrote. “It was evident that DATTCO both was short bus drivers and was suffering an internal communications breakdown.”

“RIDE immediately informed DATTCO that it was in breach of its contract…and began brainstorming with the Governor’s Office and the Department of Motor Vehicles about ways to enable licensed Connecticut drivers to operate in Rhode Island,” Cottone’s letter continues. “In fact, DATTCO has since admitted, in writing, that this plan using ‘double runs’ ‘was not suitable.’”

Demands outlined

The ACLU and Rhode Island Center for Justice letter made six demands of RIDE: that the governor issue an emergency executive order, that RIDE’s website post information about affected bus routes the night prior, as well as create an alternate route for each affected route and a dedicated hotline for parents’ phone calls.

The letter urged RIDE to offer compensatory education for any school time missed, as well as travel costs for parents whose kids weren’t able to take the bus. The ACLU specified mileage at the federal rebate rate of 67 cents a mile plus $20 a day for parents who drive, or the cost of any car service used by parents who don’t drive.

Ellen Saideman, cooperating counsel for the ACLU, responded to the RIDE response in an interview Tuesday.

“Basically they said that they’re doing everything that we wanted them to do,” Saideman said. “It does seem like they’ve made some progress. They hired more bus drivers, more routes are covered…I think the point is that there was clearly a problem in this catastrophic start last week.”

Cottone wrote in RIDE’s response Tuesday that eligible parents were notified they could request reimbursements through their resident school district, with the districts later reimbursed by RIDE, although it is unclear if the reimbursements will follow the model the ACLU wanted.

Morente said on Wednesday that all families of affected students had been informed by phone call and email about service delays, as well as information on how to seek reimbursements. Morente also forwarded parents can fill out for reimbursement, and explained the process.

“Districts reimburse parents, Statewide [the RIDE transportation system] credits districts on invoices after collecting the forms, and then payment to the vendor responsible for the interruption for the total month is reduced by the total parent costs,” Morente wrote.

Saideman was still curious why the education department wasn’t more immediately up front about the steps it was taking to correct the problem.

“Why isn’t it posted on their website?” Saideman said about the reimbursements. “I think the point about transparency is… it isn’t that hard to update your website and post information.”

McKee’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Rhode Island Current maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Janine L. Weisman for questions: info@rhodeislandcurrent.com. Follow Rhode Island Current on and .

Virginia’s school bus driver vacancy rate has decreased by five percent over the past three school years, according to the Virginia Department of Education.

After the legislature amended its reporting requirements, the agency started collecting bus driver vacancy data two years ago. Factors like pay and recruitment challenges, and drivers leaving for the private sector, led to the shortage of drivers.

In addition, schools were closed to in-person leaving some drivers to find other ways to meet the increased cost of services and goods due to inflation that burdened families in Virginia.

During the 2021-22 school year, Virginia recorded a vacancy rate of full- and part-time drivers at 16% in 2021-22. The rate decreased to 11% in 2022-23 and last year to 10%. Data on the upcoming school year ‘s driver vacancy rates will not be available until the fall.

“It’s good news,” said Scott Brabrand, the executive director of the Virginia Association of School Superintendents.

He said superintendents around the commonwealth have been working to address the shortage by offering bonuses and increasing bus driver salaries.

Schools in Virginia found other unique ways of transporting students amid the bus driver shortage, such as altering routes, placing more students on buses, and using car and van services. Some communities created programs to promote to school.

The state legislature has also attempted to address the shortage in recent years.

Last year, the General Assembly agreed to legislation carried by Del. , R-Chesterfield, and Sen., D-Portsmouth, to shorten the time period during which retired drivers with at least 25 years of service could return to work without jeopardizing their pension benefits.

In another measure, Sen. , R-Abington, and Del. , R-Washington, raised awareness of the retirement benefits for teachers who drive buses. Following the session earlier this year, the Virginia Retirement System clarified that qualifying teachers who drive buses would receive compensation when they retire.

According to the agency’s , VRS-participating school divisions may combine the job duties of two positions under one contract as long as one of the positions is a covered position.

“It is a huge benefit to teachers,” Washington County Public Schools Superintendent Keith Perrigan said.

Experts have said that transportation is one key to keeping children in school, limiting a high number of absences, and addressing the learning loss exacerbated during the pandemic.

Perrigan, who serves on the state’s to address absences, said a few school divisions he represents in the Coalition of Small and Rural Schools of Virginia will start the school year fully staffed with drivers, unlike previous years.

“Much of rural Virginia, especially Southwest Virginia, is seeing progress in this area. Although we still have some work to do, we are breathing a little easier with the bus driver shortage,” Perrigan said.

According to Perrigan, seven teachers in Washington County will split their time teaching and driving students, and more than 20 will do the same in Buchanan County.

Last year, Rappahannock County faced a shortage of drivers. However, according to Shannon Grimsley, superintendent of Rappahannock schools, the school division is fully staffed with drivers and has substitute drivers available.

This comes after Grimsley became a part-time school bus driver to alleviate transportation barriers for students and encourage others to become drivers. The division’s focus now is covering the costs of replacing aging buses, another transportation challenge some districts face.

“We are creatively working with the county government on our bus replacement schedule to ensure our fleet is in proper order and meeting all guidelines for optimum operability,” Grimsley said.

Grimsely said the costs of buses have significantly increased and the impact on rural school districts with limited state funding can be a challenge. She said the costs of buses in her district have increased by more than 63% over the past five years.

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Virginia Mercury maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Samantha Willis for questions: info@virginiamercury.com. Follow Virginia Mercury on and .

Statewide, Oklahoma public schools are experiencing a shortage of bus drivers — and they’re struggling to adapt.

School districts of all sizes are having to get creative with their responses. Coweta Public Schools has had to keep students waiting to be picked up or taken home until other routes finish. Covington-Douglas Public Schools and Clinton Public Schools pay $35 an hour, and both have had positions open since before this school year.

Guthrie Public Schools has to pay overtime to their drivers for after-school events. Beggs Public Schools has had to combine routes, resulting in some that are more than two hours long.

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StateImpact analyzed every public school district in Oklahoma and found that of the 400-plus schools with hiring listings accessible on their websites or that answered a superintendent survey, over 40% showed open driver positions. About a quarter of the 80 surveyed superintendents said they or other school administrators drive a bus.

Sentinel Public Schools superintendent Jason Goostree is one of those. Sentinel is a small, rural district in western Oklahoma, about 120 miles from Oklahoma City. Most days, Goostree drives routes to and from school. He said he didn’t expect to drive buses as a superintendent and doesn’t think it will end anytime soon.

“It’s one of those things where you feel like you’re responsible for everything that happens in the district,” Goostree said. “So it’s kind of, if this is what needs to happen to make sure things go smoothly, then that’s what you’re doing.”

He recently met with his staff and rolled out a pitch for more field trip drivers. Being so far from a city center means it’s a non-starter for Sentinel to recruit drivers who don’t already work for the district or from the church across the street. A few teachers have their bus driving licenses, but he said it’s unfair to them and their students to pull them from their classrooms.

“If we have a field trip… you can’t start yanking people out of their jobs all the time,” Goostree said. “So I got one person, for sure, out of that meeting that said she’s going to do it, and I’m working on a second. My goal was three, but if I can get two more people by the beginning of next year, that will help quite a bit.”

While rural schools find unique challenges with recruitment, larger schools are also feeling the pinch.

Despite a recent staff pay boost, yearly step raises and district-provided benefits like health insurance, Stillwater Public Schools had to cancel all out-of-town field trips for the rest of the school year because it didn’t have enough drivers. Assistant Superintendent of Operations Bo Gamble said they still have six to eight positions open.

“Trying to balance getting students where they need to be for curricular needs and wants, there’s just a trade-off that you have to make,” Gamble said. “Not having the capacity to manage all of the trips — we had to make a decision on which trips needed to be focused on.”

Gamble said field trips during the school day are especially difficult if the bus doesn’t leave and return in the window between morning and afternoon routes. He said it’s slowly improving since COVID hit, but the local workforce pool isn’t back to normal.

“In my opinion, specifically in Oklahoma … we’ve lost a lot of our workforce to [cannabis] grow farms. There’s a large capacity for that workforce. And I think everybody’s being impacted by [a workforce shortage],” Gamble said. “With COVID, it was just kind of a perfect storm. … We’re starting to come back from it … but we still need people.”

When drivers aren’t there, teachers step in

Activity sponsors — like band directors and coaches — are also getting behind the wheel. Surveyed schools had varying policies about paying these teachers more to drive their students to contests and games — Stillwater, for example, pays them an hourly rate. Nearly all surveyed schools, though, require or strongly encourage their activity sponsors to get bus driving licenses.

But adding hours of driving onto an already taxing day for coaches and directors can present safety concerns.

Hunter Hanna was a band director at Valliant Public Schools in southeastern Oklahoma. After a full day of classes in the fall, he would drive his students to and from football games several hours away and contests the next day that lasted all day.

“Those little side things on the highways that err when you hit them? Yeah, those are definitely much-needed,” Hanna said.

He said he’s been so tired driving back late at night that he makes wrong turns, which adds more time to the trips. Mid-trip stops were a must — he said he had to get some fresh air and stretch his legs to stay awake.

“Highway hypnosis is one of the things they talk about in bus driver training because, I mean, seeing all these dark roads and just nothing on them… it was pretty bad,” Hanna said.

Before getting his bus driving license, Hanna had to coordinate a patchwork of vehicles to get his band students to activities. There was a minibus that didn’t require specific licensure, a school vehicle and parents driving their personal minivans. To avoid having to finagle that, he made the call to get his license.

Hanna’s district didn’t require him to, and it paid for training and testing. Band director Whitney Callen’s district, Newcastle Public Schools, also doesn’t require activity sponsors to get bus driving licenses, though she said she was asked in her interview if she would. Several band directors and coaches who spoke to StateImpact for this story reported the same.

“I explained that at my previous district, it was not an expectation because our head director was very clear about — his staff would not drive because of the amount of hours that we worked as band directors,” Callen said. “And they seemed a little bit put off by that.”

She said she agreed to get her license — on the stipulation that she would not drive on especially long days.

“And they were like, ‘Oh, for sure. We definitely always get drivers for our directors if it’s a long weekend,’” Callen said.

Callen experienced unexpected medical issues that kept her from getting her license this year, but she watched the head band director drive those especially long days the district had said it would prioritize finding drivers for. Her colleague downs energy drinks and has asked her to sit behind him and talk to him so he stays awake.

“The school district did not follow through on that. And so when I saw that, I was like, yeah, I’m not getting my CDL because this is not a safe environment for students or me. I shouldn’t have that pressure,” Callen said. “So it does make me feel guilty, but at the same time, it makes me feel confused — why is this even something that we put on people or ask them to do?”

As the shortage of drivers persists, districts are filling in the gaps with teachers like Hanna and administrators like Goostree. They’re also upping pay, canceling trips, packing buses, doubling up routes and staggering start times.

Bo Gamble at Stillwater Public Schools said he thinks they can get staffing levels back up before the start of the new school year. The district advertises, holds hiring events and provides incentives for current employees. And true to form, he made a final pitch at the end of his interview:

“If you know anybody, we’re still hiring. We need drivers,” Gamble said. “I may be a little bit biased, but I think Stillwater Public Schools is a great place to work — Stillwater’s a great place to be.”

This  was originally published by . StateImpact Oklahoma is a partnership of Oklahoma’s public radio stations which relies on contributions from readers and listeners to fulfill its mission of public service to Oklahoma and beyond.

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Oklahoma Voice maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Janelle Stecklein for questions: info@oklahomavoice.com. Follow Oklahoma Voice on and .

Rep. Pat Heinert says North Dakota should think about throwing some federal driver’s licensing requirements under the bus.

“I’ve come up with the wild idea of creating a bus driver’s license for North Dakota,” Heinert said during a school funding committee meeting on Nov. 28.

Maybe it’s not so crazy. Maybe it is.

Mike Heilman, executive director of the , said his group and others have been looking into waivers for parts of the federal commercial driver’s license requirements that bus drivers are required to have.

Specifically, the state may be able to waive the “under-the-hood” requirement as part of the CDL training.

“There are several states that have an under-the-hood exemption,” Heilman told the committee on Nov. 28.

Part of the pre-bus inspection requires knowing how to spot potential problems with the engine.

“The mechanic needs to know this but not necessarily the bus driver,” Heilman said.

Brad Schaffer, driver license director for the North Dakota Department of Transportation, says that yes, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, which sets the rules for CDL requirements, does allow states to grant the “under the hood” exemption. But he said his department has decided against the move.

He said that someone obtaining a Class B CDL with the waiver would limit their driving:

They would only be able to drive a school bus, preventing them from driving a bus for another purpose, such as for a church group.It would mean they couldn’t drive across state lines.

He said there also is a possibility that the federal agency could decide to discontinue the waivers, forcing drivers to start over.

Schaffer said his department looked at other states that offer under-the-hood waiver and didn’t see much benefit.

Schaffer said the department can grant individual requests for under-the-hood waivers, but when potential CDL drivers learn about the restrictions, they back off. The department has not issued any such waivers this year.

He also said he didn’t think there would be a significant time savings on training with the waiver.

Other options?

Could there be other ways to create a light version of the CDL?

Levi Bachmeier, business manager for West Fargo Public Schools and a former policy adviser to Gov. Doug Burgum, said ideas are worth exploring.

Making it easier to get a CDL is one strategy to address the bus driver shortage in North Dakota and around the country.

A national survey on school busing released in 2021 showed 51% of respondents described their driver shortage as “severe” or “desperate;” and 78% indicated that the driver shortage is getting “much worse” or “a little worse.”

That has forced school districts to rethink transportation routes and services.

Alexis Baxley, executive director of the , said districts of all sizes are struggling to fill driving spots.

In Bismarck, she said drivers are having to drive two routes. The Northern Cass School District had to temporarily drop rural service this fall, offering only in-town pickup.

Other options include dropping door-to-door service, instead creating bus stops, and running longer routes. Baxley said longer routes can be especially hard on young students.

“Getting them to school is the most important thing,” Baxley said.

She said her group and the Small Organized Schools want to gather data.

“In order to identify a solution, we feel that we need to dig in and get some really hard data, something more than anecdotal, and see if we can really identify perhaps the biggest barriers to recruitment or the biggest barriers in the licensure process,” Baxley said.

Added safety requirement, fewer tests

The feds in February actually added a safety training requirement, though Schaffer said anyone who has held a CDL for two or more years qualifies as a trainer, and there is no time requirement.

Still, North Dakota has administered fewer CDL tests in 2023 than in years past.

As of Dec. 5, the state had given about 2,000 CDLs, on pace for between 2,200 and 2,300 for the year.

That’s behind 2022’s 3,000 tests and 2,700 in 2021.

Competition with industry

Bachmeier said West Fargo has covered most of the cost for drivers to obtain a CDL but that has been abused by drivers leaving for higher-paying jobs in private industry.

Heinert, a Republican from Bismarck and a former sheriff, admitted that a North Dakota-specific license may not be practical with the federal regulations that exist.

But Bachmeier agreed with Heinert that a lower training standard would help address the problem.

“If we can find a way to lower the training barriers, we can find a way to lower our competition with private providers that are always going to always out-compete us on a wage perspective, we may be able to affect some of the supply and demand issues that we have with bus drivers.”

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. North Dakota Monitor maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Amy Dalrymple for questions: info@northdakotamonitor.com. Follow North Dakota Monitor on and .

Who is ensuring that the people driving vans full of K-12 students in Arizona are properly qualified? Not the , which is tasked with making recommendations for the use of those vans, because the council effectively doesn’t exist — and hasn’t for at least a year.

When lawmakers passed that allows schools to transport students to and from school using 11- to 15-passenger vans instead of yellow buses, proponents promised skeptics that the , in conjunction with the Arizona Department of Public Safety, would establish minimum standards for drivers and safety standards for the vehicles themselves.

But it’s not possible that DPS worked with the council to create those standards, because the council hasn’t met since then-Gov. Doug Ducey, a Republican, signed the bill into law on June 16, 2022.

The council, whose membership was increased to 14 members from nine by the same bill, is currently completely vacant, and has been vacant for more than a year with no indication from Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs when or if new members will be appointed.

The law that established the council says that it’s Hobbs’ responsibility to appoint members to the council, but it was Ducey who initially allowed all of the members’ terms to expire without making reappointments.

Hobbs did not respond to multiple requests for comment or a list of questions that the Mirror sent to her team. Instead, her spokesperson referred the Arizona Mirror to DPS.

DPS did not answer the Mirror’s questions before this article was published. The most recent for a School Bus Advisory Council meeting — the former name of the council — was dated Dec. 14, 2021. A member of the , who wanted to remain anonymous out of fear of reprisal from DPS, told the Mirror that was the council’s last meeting.

The law governing the council lays out its specific duties, including that it meet twice annually, and that it “advise and consult with the department of public safety concerning matters related to the certification of school bus drivers and the safety of school buses” and 11-15 passenger vans.

The promise was ‘a lot of eyes’ looking at the safety

Sen. Sine Kerr, R-Buckeye, sponsored the bill that allows schools to use passenger vans to transport students. She said the vans would be a way for smaller schools in rural areas and charter schools with a widely dispersed student population to transport students more efficiently than with a large-capacity yellow bus.

Vans would also be cheaper than a school bus, which has higher maintenance and operational costs.

The through both chambers of the Arizona legislature last June with only Republican support.

As the bill made its way through legislative committees, multiple Democrats expressed concern about credentialing for drivers and the safety of high-capacity vans.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration recommends that only people who are used to driving large passenger vans do so, and it advises that ideally drivers should have a commercial driver’s license. More than half of the 235 people killed in rollover crashes in 15-passenger vans from 2010 to 2019 were ejected, and 69% of those killed weren’t wearing seatbelts, according to the NHTSA. Electronic stability control in newer 15-passenger vans prevents the that poses a safety risk in older models.

Regular school bus drivers must obtain a commercial driver’s license and submit to drug testing, but drivers of 15-passenger vans are only legally required to have a regular drivers license.

During a in February 2022, Sen. Sally Ann Gonzalez, D-Tucson, spoke about working as a school bus driver more than 30 years ago while she was in college. She said that she believes requiring drivers who transport students to have a CDL is an important safety measure.

The transportation administrator who spoke to the Mirror said that DPS strongly recommended during a meeting the agency held with school transportation administrators that schools require van drivers to have a CDL in order to ensure student safety, but he said that the department has no way to enforce that. He estimated that up to 70% of districts in Arizona were already using the vans for student transportation this year, including his own.

Also during the February 2022 committee meeting, Sen. Christine Marsh, D-Phoenix, said that she appreciated the idea of the bill and the possibility that it might help with an ongoing school bus driver shortage, but was concerned that safety and insurance coverage would be an issue. Marsh ultimately voted against the bill.

In June 2022, when the Senate voted on the bill, Kerr assured those with safety concerns that DPS, in conjunction with the Student Transportation Advisory Council, would keep a close eye on safety measures for use of the vans.

“It’s an important bill, particularly for rural areas that need flexibility in their school transportation when it doesn’t make sense to take a full size school bus to transport students safely on their regular bus routes,” Kerr said, adding that there would be “a lot of eyes looking at this on safety.”

Kerr did not respond to requests for comment.

is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Arizona Mirror maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jim Small for questions: info@azmirror.com. Follow Arizona Mirror on and .

Concerned, Pierce took down the classmate’s name and passed it on to the Kingdom East School District’s homeless liaison, Lori Robinson, who said the family “absolutely” qualified for services like transportation help and nutritional assistance. 

It’s a scenario Superintendent Jennifer Botzojorns has seen play out repeatedly. Her bus drivers, many of whom have been in their roles for over a decade, frequently function as the eyes and ears of the rural district, helping schools support students who may otherwise slip through the cracks.

“They really know their routes and they know the kids, so they can see if suddenly kids [are missing] a winter coat when they had one in the past … or there’s no car in the driveway,” Botzojorns said. “It’s this hidden relationship that’s really important.”

As the only adults in the school system who actually see students’ homes each day, bus drivers have a unique vantage point on housing instabilities, advocates and practitioners say. 

For Pierce, who’s shared several tips with Robinson, helping students begins with getting to know them.

“Now you’re part of our family,” he tells students when they start riding his bus, part of a specialty transportation service the district contracts with to transport students experiencing homelessness. 

He and his wife purchase gifts for students on their birthdays. Before the holiday, they bought grocery cards and 12-pound hams for each family, he said. Over time, many of the young people have come to lean on him, which he attributes to being a caring adult who is less of an “authority figure” than their teachers.

The students Pierce drives are already dealing with homelessness, but they are also the ones who are most likely to know other students facing the same hardship.

“The students tell us a lot,” Pierce said. “If you want to know who’s homeless and who’s not, you need to talk to the students, you’ve got to get a good rapport with them.”

U.S. schools identified over a million students — 2.2% of all learners — as homeless in 2020-21, the most recent school year for which data are available, according to a . But even those figures undercount the issue as , a telltale sign they are failing to identify youth in need of help.

Students experiencing homelessness have lower overall attendance, standardized test scores and high school graduation rates than any other peer group. The limited data that exist suggest roughly the same share of youth in rural areas like Vermont experience homelessness as in urban areas, but with .

Vermont has the second-highest per capita rate of homelessness in the nation, lower only than California’s, according to a . At the same time, the Green Mountain state provides temporary shelter to a higher share of its residents without homes than any other state, with 98% safely indoors on a point-in-time count from last year.

“We’ve got a brutal [housing] affordability crisis in Vermont right now,” U.S. Sen. Peter Welch told ����Ӱ�� in an email. The legislator said he is proud of his state’s efforts to shelter homeless families, but hopes school staff can also be part of longer-term solutions.

Once the Kingdom East school district knows a student is experiencing homelessness, its transportation staff continues to play a key role in supporting the child. If they’re living at a shelter or motel, the busing director alters the routes so that the student is the first pickup and last dropoff to avoid outing them as homeless to their peers. At the end of the day, district guidance counselors hand off backpacks full of clothes and food to bus drivers who discreetly give them to children in need when they step off.

“They’re backpacks and people don’t think anything of it,” transportation manager Darlene Jewell said.

Kara Lufkin, the homeless liaison for the St. Johnsbury school system, which neighbors Kingdom East, uses , a Michigan-based company that trains school staff on how to spot the signs of homelessness. The company provided training videos to her district’s transportation fleet.

“It’s really just an awareness of what are some things to look for … that could potentially mean a student was homeless,” she said.

Federal law requires all school staff who serve homeless youth to be trained in the possible signs of homelessness. The policy does not explicitly name bus drivers, or any other role, “but since bus drivers would serve students experiencing homelessness, we’d expect those drivers to be included in the professional development sessions,” said Jan Moore, director of technical assistance at the National Center for Homeless Education. 

However, oversight is lax and many transportation staff never receive the training — meaning their schools miss a key opportunity to support their most vulnerable students.

“There are disparities across the board in how, if or when training is occurring,” said Karen Roy, an advisor for MV Learning. “We want to make sure everybody is trained in recognizing what some of those red flags might be so that kids are identified. Because if we don’t identify them, we can’t begin to serve them.”

Roy said the drivers who do receive training come out of her sessions often connecting the dots retrospectively on past interactions they’ve had with students. One bus driver in a rural district in northern Michigan, for example, saw two children leave for school directly from a barn in the morning, she said.

“He didn’t really think about it until he had the training. And then he said, ‘Hey, these kids are likely homeless, they’re not living in a safe place.’ So he referred them to the liaison.”

Schools are required under the to make sure students experiencing homelessness have “equal access” to education — which often means providing them with food, clothing, transportation and more.

Lexi Higgins runs a program called that trains bus drivers on how to recognize and report human trafficking, an issue she said is “incredibly linked” to homelessness because most youth victims of trafficking are housing insecure when they’re recruited. Her company has trained drivers from over 2,000 districts.

“[Bus drivers] are sometimes forgotten when we’re talking about education professionals because they’re not on the school campus,” Higgins said. “But they really are playing an incredibly important role … and have some unique skills based on their job to be able to flag threats to the safety of the students that they’re seeing every day.”

Pierce, the East Kingdom driver, suspects such training sessions will prove to be a fruitful strategy.

“The drivers are the centerpoint for a lot of this,” he said. “I’ll bet we’ll find a lot more people who need help.”

Lufkin and Robinson, the homeless liaisons from the neighboring Vermont districts, recently tag-teamed to help a student after a bus driver sounded the alarm. Robinson had lost touch with a family on her caseload, but learned through transportation staff that the student was getting on and off the bus at different locations each day. When she got back in contact, she found out they were fleeing a domestic abuse situation. When the family found an apartment a town over, she connected them to Lufkin. 

The bus driver’s tip, Robinson said, “was the first hint that I had that anything was wrong.”

Math workbooks at a Eugene, Oregon school arrived months into the semester, delayed by paper shortages. 

Some 15 classes at one suburban New York high school were canceled last semester for lack of substitutes. 

In a Maryland high school outside D.C., new pencils were nowhere to be found when classes started in the fall, the victim of supply chain lags and no staff to order them.

Nacho cheese, reliably cheap and available, has become a mainstay on one Indianapolis school’s lunch menu as spiraling costs and ingredient shortages have led to meals on repeat.    

This is the new normal in schools across the country: Classes are back in person but day-to-day operations are a far cry from pre-pandemic norms, the lingering effects of the COVID crisis challenging everything from staffing and student mental health to school lunches. 

Compiling dozens of examples from survey responses and original reporting, ����Ӱ�� found schools are trying to function and adapt. 

For administrators like Greg Zenion, principal at Chariho Middle School in Rhode Island, this year marks the first time he cannot fill core jobs: teacher assistants, special education teachers and social workers.

“I’m in a pretty rural, beautiful area. I’m surrounded by soft fields. My building was built in 1989. It’s a great place to work. It’s a beautiful building,” Zenion said. “I can’t get people to apply for the jobs. So I think a new normal is how do you run a building short-staffed and how do you get creative to fill your positions?”

Yet educators say necessity can indeed be the mother of invention. 

“Despite all of this adversity being talked about, our school people still got their chin straps buckled up. They’re still ready to go to work, and they’re still over there doing everything they can do for kids,” said Ronn Nozoe, CEO of the National Association of Secondary School Principals. “This year is different because folks have found all kinds of creative ways to provide.” 

Some examples: 

To ease the burden of juggling a family with teaching full-time, an Indianapolis school opened free child care for staff on-site. At one Milwaukee school, $20 gift cards are given to teachers who substitute. 

Schools, public and private are all hands on deck — recruiting drivers and other staff at grocery stores, offering bonus pay. 

But no amount of personal dedication can alleviate systemic strains. Even armored with the optimism inherent to many school leaders, they are coming to terms with a new reality and what’s at stake. 

“Our members remain dedicated to kids and excited about [school],” Nozoe said, “but they are, especially the ones who have been around a bit and can see the writing on the wall, worried about the shortages and what that may mean if we can’t augment the workforce quickly enough…”

As one teacher at a school in Delaware serving a high proportion of students in poverty explained, “the students are so burnt out and so are we.” 

To make up for learning loss, teachers at the Delaware school introduce new material on days when students also take mandatory tests. Their veteran teachers are retiring more often, leaving big gaps. One teacher now has regular panic attacks. “If it wasn’t for my incredible coworkers and admin I wouldn’t be able to do it,” the educator wrote. 

Several educators painted a picture of students changed by core social years spent in isolation in front of screens: less curiosity or interest; individual work preferred to working with peers; missed class and deadlines. Students arrive, and leave, exhausted, but are expected to catch up more than ever before. 

The concerning behavior has made school staff put students’ emotional well being first, with more of an emphasis on offering school-based mental health services. 

“The need was…far more significant than any of us realized,” said Monica Asher, a Columbus, Ohio high school principal. “Definitely a new normal is… more of an acceptance…to employ social workers, mental health professionals. Pre-pandemic, those were nice if you could get them but…now …those are necessary.”

Pieced together, the anecdotes offer a clearer image of the American school day as the pandemic continues to have a hold on students, families and educators: 

Morning: For Many, a Transportation “Dumpster Fire”

By 5 a.m., a high schooler in a small city between Orlando and Tampa, Florida is up — sleep deprived but with a sense of urgency: He has to reach the Wesley Chapel bus hub by 5:59 a.m, to get to class by 7:06 a.m. His school now starts earlier to make up for hurricane days and remote learning. 

“Our bus situation is pretty much a dumpster fire,” his mother responded in the survey, “…this is unhealthy for those kids. And half the time the bus isn’t at the hub on time, meaning we parents have to drive the half hour one-way trip to the school… ”

At a community school in northern Georgia, “some teachers at my school delay instruction in order to wait for the late buses. This means that some of the students who are not late to school are sitting idly. It is a huge waste of instructional time,” said a school director.  

In Omaha, Nebraska, the city’s major urban district serving over 50,000 students has begun cutting routes, increasing the living radius to qualify. 

The underlying culprit, many believe, is simple economics. 

“I hear from principals all over the country that it’s really hard because of the school bus driver pay,” Nozoe said. “These folks who drive commercially can get more money [in] other venues than driving a school bus. (And) it takes a certain kind of person to drive a school bus. You just can’t turn around and scream at the kids at the top of your lungs.”

First Bell: The Writing on the Wall

At a Milwaukee Catholic high school, social studies teacher Mary Talsky has noticed lots of empty seats. For every email about a kid out sick, she gets three to four times more about absences because of mental health issues: My kid is struggling with anxiety and can’t come in today; I’m taking my child to an appointment with a psychiatrist. 

“I have not seen numbers like this before,” Talsky said. “Maybe they’re just more willing to say that out loud than they were in the past.”  

Across the country, teachers start the day by opening up adjoining classroom walls — asked to cover for colleagues.  

Lunchtime: Same Cafeteria, Fewer Options

Brooklyn high school senior Samantha Farrow told ����Ӱ�� students don’t come to school with COVID as often as they did this time last year. There’s more understanding from teachers if you miss school for being sick, more flexibility around work turned in late. 

And she’s noticed another change. 

“I think a lot of people don’t really sit in the cafeteria anymore, because it feels like a superspreader event,” she said. “So a lot of people eat in the hallways or go outside to eat.”

Further west, at Adelante, a K-8 school in Indianapolis, students in the lunch line see now familiar sights: yellow and plastic. Nachos and frozen items make the cut often: as is the case in , food distributors have increased the dollar price per meal. Others districts have trouble finding ingredients.

“Our food services are still…reeling from the overall cost (and) day to day shortages of what can be offered fresh and what can’t — which can result in kids having to repeat meal patterns day in and day out…” said Jordan Habayeb, managing director at Adelante. 

“We have to dip into [federal] funding,” to offset the increases in food costs, “which then means we have to kind of take the gas off of something else,” Habayeb said. On the chopping block is funding to expand after school clubs. Fifteen are offered, half as many as schools nearby. 

Afterschool: Trade Offs

Come day’s end in Snellville, Georgia, some students pass on tutoring or afterschool clubs: There is no late bus.

In New Orleans, the principal of a Spanish immersion school reviews applications for new English teachers, the need for more instructors after students spent nearly a year learning remotely and only hearing Spanish spoken at home. 

A high school administrator in Antioch, Illinois starts making calls: Their school furniture supplier has had trouble filling orders.

At the Indianapolis school with plenty of nachos and cheese, about 40 students and staff’s own kids file into a new free after care program that offers in-depth math tutoring. Fifteen families are on the waitlist. 

And in southern Florida, Haines City High School families head to dinner, part of a new “Parent University” hosted monthly on-campus. They talk about the new normal around technology, learn how to check their childrens’ grades and progress toward graduation requirements. 

“I think it is really important to remember that yeah, [the pandemic] was pretty bad,” said New Orleans middle school principal Laura Adelman-Cannon, who had to rebuild post-Katrina. “But there have been other really bad things. And we made it through, right? It’s possible.”

Under current federal law, school bus drivers are subject to annual random drug tests. School districts or contracted bus companies must test 10% of their drivers for alcohol and 50% for drugs like controlled opiates and marijuana each year.��

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The new measure would expand that to 100% of school bus drivers at least twice annually, including drivers for private schools. The bill will be sponsored by Bergen County Assembly Republicans Robert Auth and DeAnne DeFuccio.��

“We have a collective responsibility to protect children, which will be more challenging as our New Jersey laws and attitudes toward drugs like marijuana evolve,” said DeFuccio in a statement. “School bus drivers are carrying our most precious cargo and our rules regarding drug and alcohol testing should reflect that.”

The lawmakers cited a 2019 crash in Newark where a before driving 11 special-needs children to school. She overdosed and crashed, and was revived with Narcan. In 2020, a for failing to conduct drug testing and background checks and for using unqualified drivers.��

Contractors and boards of education would have to file evidence of the completed testing with their county schools superintendent under the bill.

“Parents deserve the peace of mind that comes with knowing their children are in the safest hands when they get on the bus in the morning,” said Auth. “Our bill addresses gaps in drug and alcohol testing protocols and ensures every single school bus driver is being held to the same standard.”

is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. New Jersey Monitor maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Terrence McDonald for questions: info@newjerseymonitor.com. Follow New Jersey Monitor on and .

Faced with burnout, low wages and now COVID-19, scores of education workers — including not just teachers but also school bus drivers, special education paraprofessionals, cafeteria and afterschool workers, nurses, school safety agents and custodians — have left their posts.

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Districts have been forced to cancel classes, close cafeterias and feed students pizza, bring back remote classes, and hire per diem emergency workers. School officials have also increased salaries and other incentives to attract and retain staff.

����Ӱ�� has found school staffing shortages in all 50 states.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ most recent data show there were in July. The rate of workers leaving their job only — wholesale trades and education.

“I fear the worst is yet to come,” Highline public school superintendent Susan Enfield told ����Ӱ��. Her district outside of Seattle has had to send central office staff to fill teaching positions. Enfield believes the approaching cold and flu season and new vaccine requirements will exacerbate shortages in the coming months.

In one Idaho district, the staffing situation was so dire, schools were “due to excessive staff absences and the shortage of substitute teachers.”

When schools managed to open, staffing shortages created headaches for students: A lack of cafeteria workers meant children at S. Weir Mitchell Elementary in Philadelphia weren’t served breakfast or lunch one day in September.

Many students haven’t made it to school at all because of a shortage of bus drivers. In a National School Transportation Association , more than half of the school district officials polled described their bus driver shortage as “severe” or “desperate.”

In Minnesota’s St. Francis Area Schools superintendent Beth Giese got her bus driver’s license to help ease the shortage.

“​​A very wise mentor once told me, never ask an employee to do anything you wouldn’t do yourself. Guess who got her bus license!” Giese in a Facebook post.

To see how widespread and pervasive the school staffing shortages are, click on states below to see ways they’re experiencing — and tackling — the back-to-school hurdle.

If you are having trouble viewing the interactive, click here